The 'Great British Baking Show' is officially back

BBC/Netflix

The INSIDER Summary:

"The Great British Baking Show" is coming back with its
fourth season in America Friday night on PBS.

The cooking show is unlike any American reality
series.

The show is calm and the contestants are
supportive of one another.

During these chaotic times, this wholesome cooking show
is needed.

In the Divided States of America, where a volatile reality-show
president is in the White House and even tragic events like mass
shootings manage to ignite nasty arguments on social media, there
is something particularly restorative about watching "The Great
British Baking Show."

About ten minutes into the first episode of the fourth season to
air in America, which debuts Friday night on PBS, I could feel
the anxiety brought on by the day’s news start to slide away like
lemony liquid running down the side of a drizzle cake.

This is technically a competition series designed to capture all
the stress of attempting to assemble gingerbread houses and make
Viennese whirls under tight deadlines. And it does capture that.
But unlike a lot of American cooking shows — and, as evidenced by
the current controversy
swirling around "Bachelor in Paradise," reality shows in
general — it takes place within such a supportive and mature
atmosphere that watching it induces an immediate sense of calm.
I’m not saying that if more people watched "The Great British
Baking Show," world peace could be achieved. But I’m not
not saying that either.

BBC/Netflix

The judges — culinary experts Mary Berry, who, sadly, won’t
return after this season, and Paul Hollywood, the closest thing
this show has to a Simon Cowell — are certainly not unfailingly
polite. Both often offer harsh assessments of their charges’
work. But they are rarely nasty, and the contestants themselves,
all amateur bakers who take the experience seriously, tend to
buoy each other up more often than tear each other down.

When one wins a challenge or gets high marks from Hollywood and
Berry, it’s not uncommon for him or her to get a thumbs-up or a
“Well done” from a rival baker. And in the second episode of this
season, when one baker, Louise, drops an entire sheet of freshly
baked biscuits while pulling them out of the oven, fellow
competitor Candice — who could pass, in a certain light, for
Victoria Beckham — rushes over to ask if she’s okay, then cleans
the mess. Isn’t this what we all should aspire to be: the kind of
person who’s there to help pick up the biscuits?

Of course, this emphasis on communal spirit over interpersonal
drama has always been core to "The Great British Baking Show." At
the moment, it just happens to feel more valuable than ever. So
does the sense that, whether it’s true or not, the events that
transpire are organic and not being heightened for the sake of
the camera.

BBC/Netflix

During this season, which aired last year in the UK,
regular viewers can expect to encounter all the usual Baking Show
elements: a weekly series of challenges focused on different
types of baked goods, from cakes to breads to botanically
inspired concoctions; competitors who come across, without
exception, as likable, decent humans; dashes of humor and
encouraging pep talks from hosts Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc,
for whom this is also the last season; and that huge wedding tent
of a set that appears to have been set up in Lady Mary Crawley’s
sprawling backyard.

PBS is wise to schedule "The Great British Baking
Show" on Friday nights. At the end of a long, difficult
week — and is any week not at least semi-trying these days? — the
best possible therapy is to put up one’s feet, snap on the
television, and watch a bunch of Brits demonstrate what it means
to live up to that most British of slogans: “Keep Calm and Carry
On With Your Jaffa Cakes.”